I started a new thread where you can post thoughts on Comp Mod. The council has reviewed the regular comp mod changes and beta mod changes and have decided on the following.

This is meant to be a full list of changes from Vanilla:

Changes for both Marines and Aliens:

-Removed floating health bars on players-P-Res rate for all players decreased to 0.1 from 0.125 -Removed seeing who the enemy commander is in pregame-Pregame damage only occurs when touching enemy chair/hive

Gorge:-Air friction, air control, and belly slide may be different than vanilla. Allows for "Gorge Bunnyhop" movement. -Gorges can now control which tunnel will be replaced when they place their third tunnel by crouching while placing it - for example, if you hold crouch when placing your third tunnel, you destroy your most recent dropped tunnel end. If you don't hold crouch when placing your third tunnel, you would destroy your 1st tunnel end-Removed parasite effect from webs-Babbler change: remove damage taken cap and make their hp 11-Clog hp reduced to 180

-P-Res cost changed to 55 from 62-Boneshield is changed from vanilla to be more similar to old comp mod boneshield. -Speed changes: increased Max Base Speed to 7.5 from 6.6, and the base max Charge Speed to 11.5 from 10.5

Aliens Additional Changes:

-Starting P-Res for Aliens increased to 15 from 12-Aliens structures grow three times as slow without a drifter, instead of only twice as slow. -Removed the ability to drop lifeform eggs-Cyst max hp reduced to 180 – every cyst has the same health. -Cysts will be damaged while unconnected -Cyst maturation rate reduced to 15 from 45-Focus changes: 2x damage multiplier, light damage versus players, 66% reduced attack rate-Silence changes: Upgrade changed to mute alien attack abilities by 25% per upgrade chamber. So movement should be 100% silent with 3 upgrade chambers, and attacks will be 75% silent. This is for primary attacks. -Disabled Regeneration within 2 seconds of taking damage -Mucous Cloud changed: grants 15% Biomass-Included HP -Remove alien abilities if required biomass is lost from hive death – in vanilla, when a hive dies that puts you under the required biomass to have an ability, you still keep the ability until you die. In Comp Mod, you lose that ability when the hive dies.-Soft cap on all alien healing over 16% per second, reducing effectiveness by 80%-Nutrient Mist no longer preserves structures off infestation-Nutrient Mist requires infestation to place-Bilebomb on contamination changed to 1 from 3 -"Rupture" parasite should last 3 seconds (instead of 10 seconds)

Skulk bite range: This has not been changed as far as I'm aware. The bite cone has been changed, so you have to aim closer to the marine model to register a hit. It's the same bite cone as it was before the vanilla change to increase the bite cone.

The Lerk changes: build 310 changed the lerk movement as follows: Increase non-celerity flap force to match celerity to reduce Lerk’s dependence on CelerityImproved crouch diving mechanics to help with ambushing and spikingIncreased strafe flap force to help with spiking - So it's these 3 things reversed. So comp mod will be lerk movement before the build 310 changes.

Onos boneshield: I'll try to provide more information on this once the mod is updated. The changes for Onos Boneshield from vanilla may be: -Onos cannot move while boneshield is active-Boneshield does not affect regeneration of health-Boneshield damage reduction decreased to 75% from 80% This may be missing information so I'll try to review once mod is updated.

Skulks: No mention of smaller biterange - is the biterange exactly the same as in Vanilla?

I will add a bit on this, you can not change the width or the length of the bite cone separately, so if one changes the other changes too. If the width is smaller, then the length is also smaller due to how ns2 projects the cone into the game. Under skulk changes you can see: "-Bite cone reverted to smaller bite cone. ". This means that the width is smaller and also the length.

The NSL Competitve Mod has been updated to include the changes listed in the first post. Server admins that currently have the beta mod on the server, they can now put NSL Competitive Mod on comp servers and remove the beta mod. Thank you.

Win count on NA and NL since september 1st is 97 (62.6%) for marines and 58 (37.4%) for aliens

Since September 5th it is 48 (56.5%) to 37 (43.5%)

Since September 10th it is 13 (48.1%) to 14 (51.9%)

I mentioned marines before aliens in the stats above.

Was this only taking beta mod into consideration or could this include servers that weren't running beta mod? If so, these stats might not tell us much. Hopefully all servers will remove beta mod now, and we can get some good stats going.

Good question. The idea behind focus is it can add a new layer to the game. It allows for more upgrades to choose from. Also, it may give the aliens a better chance in the mid/late game. The aliens can get an easier clear on marines with no armor. So teamplay can be more viable.

Focus is a fun upgrade to make different playstyles stand out. For example, fades who can swipe 4 times in a row while taking damage are amazing, but so are fades who can dodge the whole marine clip while only getting 2-3 swipes in during the same amount of time.

Focus also adds different playstyles to marines. Now you cant sit in a hive with no armor and expect to med spam push the lerks without dying because you will die. This is a big reason due to marines getting away with playing bad against skulk aliens because you only need one good shotgun shot and they're dead, so if you now lose your lifeforms you can still hold a hive and not be punished too much.

Moving silence to shift while being a good pubstomper/gather stomper change should not have such extreme hits on competitive play and marines will be more forced to check their surroundings when they travel around the map.

Also having good upgrades on each hive (Movement speed or silence on shift, focus or wallhack on shade, regen or armor on crag hives respectively) will add more playstyles where you see different players go for different upgrades. Adds more variety and maybe also replayability.

Rt biting should be slower with focus since it does light damage, so it is weaker against armor, however when armor wears off you do 75*2 damage as skulk to the rt, so maybe it balances out. I haven't crunched those numbers, but I think it turns out slower in the long run. This also means when you bite rts you cant take focus, so it gives your more options for different scenarios.

Focus is a fun upgrade to make different playstyles stand out. For example, fades who can swipe 4 times in a row while taking damage are amazing, but so are fades who can dodge the whole marine clip while only getting 2-3 swipes in during the same amount of time.

Focus also adds different playstyles to marines. Now you cant sit in a hive with no armor and expect to med spam push the lerks without dying because you will die. This is a big reason due to marines getting away with playing bad against skulk aliens because you only need one good shotgun shot and they're dead, so if you now lose your lifeforms you can still hold a hive and not be punished too much.

Moving silence to shift while being a good pubstomper/gather stomper change should not have such extreme hits on competitive play and marines will be more forced to check their surroundings when they travel around the map.

Also having good upgrades on each hive (Movement speed or silence on shift, focus or wallhack on shade, regen or armor on crag hives respectively) will add more playstyles where you see different players go for different upgrades. Adds more variety and maybe also replayability.

Rt biting should be slower with focus since it does light damage, so it is weaker against armor, however when armor wears off you do 75*2 damage as skulk to the rt, so maybe it balances out. I haven't crunched those numbers, but I think it turns out slower in the long run. This also means when you bite rts you cant take focus, so it gives your more options for different scenarios.

That's really helpful, thank you. I don't think I like these changes, but I do appreciate that you guys are experimenting with ways to shake up the meta. Please try to give explanations like this going forward - particularly when making really significant changes like this (and especially when those changes, on the face of it, look an awful lot like changes UWE made to vanilla, which we have all complained about for a year).

Skulks: No mention of smaller biterange - is the biterange exactly the same as in Vanilla?

The attack range of skulk bite (and fade swipe too) have NOT been changed and are not affected. There has been some misinformation spreading around about this. I myself was not sure about it either way. But I finally got less lazy and verified that the range of attacks is NOT changed from vanilla.

TLDR: When you are attacking something in the center of your screen, if you would hit it in vanilla then you would hit it in comp mod. But if you are turning away from it, you will stop hitting in comp mod before you will stop hitting it in vanilla.

I will expand on that for those interested. What I call range (and what the game calls range), is the distance straight ahead from your eye (in your mouth, for aliens) toward where you are looking. It's a simple straight line segment. This line segment has a certain length, depending on the attack. The length of this line segment has not been changed. Obviously, attacks can register even if the target isn't exactly on this line directly in front of you. At the end of the range line, on the side far from your eyes, there is a rectangle. The plane of this rectangle is perpendicular to the range line. Anything inside the area of this rectangle can be attacked, and will register as a hit. It is the size of this rectangle at the end of your range that has been changed. (There are also rectangles in between your eyes and the maximum range; you can obviously hit things that are very close to you. But I'm not talking about that right now.)

What does this mean? Most things in game are not one pixel (or whatever distance) wide or tall. Things take space on your screen. Even if you are not looking at something straight on, you can still hit it, as long as it's still inside the rectangle. But since this rectangle is now smaller, the angle you can turn away from the target is now smaller.

I support that change. I had the feeling aura + silence as combination is pretty hardcore

Oh and for some stats since 14th september:

I have 19 recorded games: 15 were alien wins and 4 were marine wins

I also want to point out that the stats update once every 24 hours (that is why number of rounds is odd here) so the stats may lack behind 24 hours

Aswell as that this wonitor does not keep track of all NSL servers. 2 I can think of that are not included are FR and RU. So if those servers do have a wonitor please let me know so I can talk to supafred to include those stats in his database.

Silence on Shift hive was absolutely retarded af. Really don't know what the thought behind that was. It gives no incentive to go any other hive but Shift for your first. Not only do you get the perks of silence + celerity, but you get echo ability with enzyme. Later on you get silent focus fades that 3 shot A2 Marines, and get Silent Aura Lerks that will almost always be able to ambush you. Who wants to play EVERY game with silence at the start? Just do everyone a favor and get rid of that skill. Sound is one of the most important aspects of FPS gaming. Even with sound on attacks it's already too late by the time you can react.

My point overall is that silence makes the game less fun overall. In order to properly play against it, you need to be constantly doing 180 degree turns every couple seconds to make sure your not getting flanked, while still having to worry about ambushes around every corner.

You don't have to keep shifting around abilities to different hive types or come up with different upgrades to replace silence. Shift hive as ALWAYS been 95% situational celerity, with Adrenaline being used like 5% by end game Lerks.